


breath

by AnguishofMyLove



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, maybe...?, nothing happens, oooh~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguishofMyLove/pseuds/AnguishofMyLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t immediately notice him, the brown and white mingling with all of Mother Nature, but there, wedged between the v of two roots, is a boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breath

**Author's Note:**

> felt like making a descriptive fic because i suddenly thought of a line saying how hiccup was neither fond nor resentful of the cold but the normalcy of it in berk comforted him
> 
> so
> 
> also bow to my title making skills bitch

The snow by his feet crunch a familiar lilt. The forest is still but Hiccup likes to think that if he closes his eyes, the white flakes falling will whisper a melody by his ear. This is the music that lulls him, that allows him to breathe a little easier. He rarely looks to find his happy place, he’s always at the village, in the forge, locked up in his room, out and about in the streets, ignored or sneered, his head very rarely not held up. Hiccup is not happy in the village but it is a place he’s learned to content himself with. Where else, after all, can he go?

But, on the rare occasion, he likes having the time to simply breathe. A little time to just be, no expectations, no goals, no heaviness having to weigh him down. The forest isn’t his own, as much as he would like it to be—there is the stray Viking, the stray animal, flocking here and there, his time alone not quite as solitary as he would like—but it is the place he can find one corner and just breathe out.

The air is stagnant but no less cold than usual. It is a cold that settles deep into his bones and wraps him around like a blanket. He is neither fond nor resentful of the cold, it simply is. It is the air he grew up in and perhaps, while he is not fond of it, its familiarity comforts him. The fresh smell of nature and snow fills in deep in his lungs and for a moment, he closes his eyes to feel each chord of muscle unwind. He is not aware of it, but the corner of his lips quirk up to an almost-smile.

He doesn’t immediately notice him, the brown and white mingling with all of Mother Nature, but there, wedged between the v of two roots, is a boy. His hair is as pure as the frozen flakes and his skin is as smooth and pale as a perfect sheet of ice. All of Hiccup’s breath, caught in a mid-inhale, is rushed out. The boy’s fluttering lashes are near translucent against the sun peaking from the branches, his lips are soft and thin. Hiccup stands there, a few feet away from the sleeping beauty, and his heart thuds only once.

The boy looks nothing like the other Vikings, his features soft and smooth. He looks untouched, the raggedness of the other village men lost on his body, except for, Hiccup notices, the roughness of his palm and sole. Hiccup almost startles then, only then noticing the thinness of his clothes and the lack of protection on his feet. Vikings are hard and tough but not even they can stand the frigidness of Old Man Winter like this boy can.

He goes nearer then, his eyes tracing each arc and dip on the other’s body and his mouth opens to release a fog of cold air. The boy is breathing deep and his face is the image one would paint, open, calm, and angelic. It makes Hiccup’s hand twitch and he kneels down to the boy’s level, unmindful of the water seeping through his pants. He scoots closer and his breaths come out white, a fog making the boy look unearthly, and his breaths go deep.

His knees fold down until his rear touches his heels and his hand digs in to grab his notebook and pencil. He finds the last page and he moves his legs, crossing them and settling his notebook on the x of his ankles. He starts to draw.

Underneath the soft warmth of the sun and the glistening of the winter ground, a boy dreams of laughter and joy as another follows each breath with a stroke of lead.

(Hiccup doesn’t find the boy again but his image is kept for safekeeping, a finger sometimes tracing the lashes that frame a boy’s cheekbones.)


End file.
